Страница:
then drew the icon aside. There was a small cubbyhole
J
where I could just squeeze in. "They won't find you here," she said.
"I'll come back when the danger is over. Don't move, and don't smoke."
She moved the icon back in place and I was left in the darkness with
only the air that filtered through a small crack in the wall. For a while I
listened to the artillery and rifles. It was silent for a brief moment.
Then, shots and wild screaming. Afterward, I learned that the Reds had
massacred all the Cossacks. Only one, a fellow my own age, had been rescued
by the sister-cook, who had hidden him in a dish closet.
The Reds were searching for convent treasure. I heard them approach
with the mother superior. They were warning her that thev would kill her if
she didn't tell them where it was. They were so close that I could hear
their swearwords and their heavy, drunken breathing. They looted the church
for about a half hour. In spite of the cold and my cramped quarters, I fell
asleep.
I was wakened by someone shaking me and I thought the end had come.
When I opened my eyes, I saw some officers and Cossacks, with the mother
superior. "Come out of your hole, friend," said a captain I did not know.
"And thank the mother superior for saving your life. Everybody else was
slaughtered."
I was so stiff I could hardly walk. By the time they got me to the
courtyard I saw one of the Cossack detachments from Ekaterinodar. About two
hundred Red soldiers had captured the convent as they had been returning
from a village where they had looted a State vodka factory. Dead drunk, they
had been on their way to the railroad station, where another Red detachment
was quartered, when they had come upon the convent and heard that there were
Cossacks inside.
While I had slept, the situation had reversed. Exhausted from the
fighting and drunk on the mass wine they had looted at the convent, the
soldiers, even the sentinels, had fallen asleep. The Cossacks in a nearby
stanitza had managed to alert a detachment on its way to the front. The
battle was short and the Reds were wiped out. Only twenty were left alive to
bury the dead, and then they were shot. That was what the Civil War was
like.
My orderly returned with my horse, and I set out again for
Ekaterinodar.
Despite some victories, our resistance was doomed. There were just a
few of us, and masses of Reds were arriving from all sides. We had no
reserve ammunition, while the Reds had the leftover reserves of the Russian
army at the front.
The noose was tightening around Ekaterinodar. Our superiors -- Ataman
Filimonov, Colonel Pokrovsky and some generals from the front -- decided the
only way to escape being annihilated was to retreat to the mountains to the
south on the Black Sea. I don't think they had anv idea of how we would
survive in the mountains or where we would find food for thousands of men.
How would we defend ourselves? It was a desperate decision but it was our
only choice. The situation became more critical as hordes of civilians and
retired officers who were afraid of falling into the hands of the Reds
followed us.
In February 1918 we left our beloved city only to run immediately into
a line of Bolshevik troops. After a few days of fighting, we were sure the
end had come for us. Everyone was put into the front lines, even the
civilians and the old men. But toward the evening of the third day somehow
we broke through. My mounted detachment had the responsibility of protecting
headquarters from a surprise attack.
A horseman galloped out of the woods, leaped from his horse before
Ataman Filimonov, and threw his arms around him shouting, "Kornil, Kornil."
He was one of our Cherkess allies and had brought us unexpected good news.
General Kornilov and his tiny army were just eighteen miles away. We had
thought he was still in Rostov-on-the-Don, but he too had evacuated under
pressure. He had hoped to join us and wait for better times -- for the moment
when the Cossacks, who were observing strict neutrality (ninety percent of
our men were ex-officers), would understand what real threat the Bolsheviks
were to their whole way of life.
Pokrovsky was scheduled to meet Kornilov the next day but Pokrovsky
himself had only been named major-general the evening before by Filimonov.
This was bound to offend Kornilov and the other generals. Filimonov did not,
in their view, have the right to make appointments. Now he had acted as the
head of an independent state, and this could only add to the tension between
the Cossacks and the Russians. Pokrovsky, because he was not a Cossack, was
denied a role in the joined armies.
The meeting of our two small troops under Kornilov's command was to
take place in the stanitza of Novy-Dmitrievskaya. We hoped to persuade the
Cossacks to rise, so we thought it essential to retake their capital,
Ekaterinodar. So, at the beginning of March, our army was once again before
the city. Ekaterinodar was defended by ten times our strength, and fortified
by heavy artillery against our measly ten cannons and two thousand shells.
Even so, we might have taken it if General Kornilov had not been hit by a
shell. His death was a terrible blow. It overturned all our plans. He was a
Cossack general and immensely popular. If we had taken Ekaterinodar, he
could have rallied all the Cossacks of Kuban, the Don and Terek. His
successor, General Denikine, did not have the same relationship with the
men. In any case, he decided to raise the siege and to move us to the
territory of the Don Cossacks where, it was rumored, the Cossack contingents
had begun to converge.
We went through a village called, in Russian, "The Colonies." It was
where the Germans who had been transplanted to Russia under Catherine II
lived. With elaborate security, we buried Kornilov. (The next day the Reds
discovered his grave and dragged his body through the streets of
Ekaterinodar.) had hoped to join us and wait for better times -- for the
moment when the Cossacks, who were observing strict neutrality (ninety
percent of our men were ex-officers), would understand what real threat the
Bolsheviks were to their whole way of life.
Pokrovsky was scheduled to meet Kornilov the next day but Pokrovsky
himself had only been named major-general the evening before by Filimonov.
This was bound to offend Kornilov and the other generals. Filimonov did not,
in their view, have the right to make appointments. Now he had acted as the
head of an independent state, and this could only add to the tension between
the Cossacks and the Russians. Pokrovsky, because he was not a Cossack, was
denied a role in the joined armies.
The meeting of our two small troops under Kornilov's command was to
take place in the stanitza of Novy-Dmitrievskaya. We hoped to persuade the
Cossacks to rise, so we thought it essential to retake their capital,
Ekaterinodar. So, at the beginning of March, our army was once again before
the city. Ekaterinodar was defended by ten times our strength, and fortified
by heavy artillery against our measly ten cannons and two thousand shells.
Even so, we might have taken it if General Kornilov had not been hit by a
shell. His death was a terrible blow. It overturned all our plans. He was a
Cossack general and immensely popular. If we had taken Ekaterinodar, he
could have rallied all the Cossacks of Kuban, the Don and Terek. His
successor, General Denikine, did not have the same relationship with the
men. In any case, he decided to raise the siege and to move us to the
territory of the Don Cossacks where, it was rumored, the Cossack contingents
had begun to converge.
We went through a village called, in Russian, "The Colonies." It was
where the Germans who had been transplanted to Russia under Catherine II
lived. With elaborate security, we buried Kornilov. (The next day the Reds
discovered his grave and dragged his body through the streets of
Ekaterinodar.)
BY NIGHT, across the violent winds of the steppes of the northern
Caucasus, we marched toward the Don. Each evening as we would start out only
the general staff knew what our route was to be. Nevertheless, the Reds
succeeded regularly in discovering the stanitzas where we halted, and
bombarded us with artillery fire. We were so short of guns and shells that
we could not fire back except in grave emergency. Our supply corps was the
closest Red detachment; when our shells or cartridges ran dangerously low,
we raided them.
I took part in these expeditions often. On the steppes of Kuban, one
night, we were only a few miles from my village, where my mother and younger
brother still lived. I hadn't seen them for months, and was frantic to know
if they were all right, but I could not leave the column. I had been
assigned to be General Markov's liaison with General Denikine for that
night.
It was pitch dark, the clouds blotted out any trace of moonlight, and a
cutting wind blew in our faces. We were wearing Cossack burkas, long, black
felt water- and wind-proof capes which served at night as sleeping bags. We
marched eight miles north, then turned south to throw the Bolsheviks off our
trail. We had to cross the railroad tracks, a movement which took several
hours and was very dangerous since the Reds might easily telephone our
position to the armored trains, who could bombard us. To keep the trains
from getting too close to the column as it crossed the tracks, teams of
sappers would blow up the tracks a few miles away on both sides of our
lines.
That night I was following General Denikine's personal bodyguards.
Wrapped in my burka, I had laid the bridle on the horse's neck and begun to
doze off. I was roused when my horse stopped. The column, two or three miles
long, had halted and everybody had dismounted. We stretched our stiffened
limbs and lay down, covering our heads with our burkas. Next to me was a
kurgan, one of the mounds on which the Cossacks a century before had lit
their signal fires to warn of Cherkess attacks. I climbed one side of the
kurmn to get out of the wind, attached the bridle to my leg to keep my horse
from wandering, and fell asleep. After a while, the cold woke me. When I
opened my eyes, I leaped up. The column had disappeared. My horse, grazing
on the fresh grass, had dragged me gradually down the kurgan.
The wind had died and the sky was cloudless. Overhead the moon shone
brilliantly; it was absolutely silent. I put my ear to the ground to see if
I could pick up any sound of the column and wagons. I could hear nothing. I
was quite alone in this vast, dangerous steppe.
I was frozen with such intense fear that I was physically ill. I gave
my horse his head in the hopes he would find his own way to our column. I
knew the Red cavalry would be close behind. He didn't run, he flew. The
noise of his hooves resounded like thunder on the dry ground.
After about an hour, I saw a dark line against the gray horizon. To
make less noise, I rode along the side of the road, where the earth was
softer. After a while, I realized that the dark line was a row of trees
planted along the railway tracks to protect them from snowdrifts. I knew the
road would lead to a crossing, but I didn't know what might await me there,
so I turned to the right.
When I was five hundred yards from the crossing, I thanked God that I
had made a detour. Through the unbearable silence I heard the sound of a
train slowly approaching. The armored train, I thought. I dismounted and led
my horse into the shadows of the trees. Apparently the Reds had repaired the
section of track we had blown up and were searching for the place where we
had crossed.
The train had stopped at the crossing house, and I heard what I assumed
was the Reds interrogating the railroad guard. I could not distinguish the
words. The talking stopped but still the train did not move.
It might stay there until dawn. It was already 3 A.M., so I didn't have
much time and the only safety lay on the other side of the tracks. But to
cross I would have to go through woods, down along a road that sank three
yards below the surrounding ground. The other side was easier. It was only
about a yard high, no trouble for my horse. But I would have to do all of
this without the men on the train hearing me, and there was no wind to drown
out the noise.
I pulled off farther to the right, leading the horse by the bridle. He
was used to the front, so we accomplished this easily. Then he saw the
tracks glinting in the pale moonlight. I pulled at him with all my strength
to get him to cross them. He was afraid of the slippery rails and would not
budge. All this effort made a considerable amount of noise.
I could hear my heart beating, and despite the cold I was bathed in
sweat. The only solution was to mount the horse, which might lessen his fear
and encourage his instinct to obey his rider. I made the sign of the cross
and leaped into the saddle and, for the first time ever, struck him with my
crop. Surprised and offended, he made such a leap that he almost fell
between the tracks, and I had difficulty keeping my mount. Everything
happened quickly. I found myself half stunned, lying against a tree. The
horse was standing next to me trembling. I could hear the drops of sweat
falling from his body onto the ground. My face and hands were scratched from
the branches and I had an enormous bump on my head. My whole body hurt but I
didn't have time to think. The Reds must certainly have heard. I forced
myself to my feet and led the horse through the woods.
A few minutes later, I was on the steppe once again and relieved. I was
on the right side. I heard voices from the crossing and then the train began
to move. They were searching for the source of the noise. I whipped the
horse with my crop and he leaped forward. Immediately, I heard the sound of
machine gun fire aimed in the wrong direction. But now the Reds heard the
hoof beats on the dry ground. They couldn't get me with a machine gun so
they fired a dozen cannon shells. All fell short, except one that landed
about two yards to my left.
I galloped God knows where for about twenty minutes. But the horse was
about to fall from exhaustion and so I stopped for twenty minutes. I was
certain now that the Reds were not going to get me that night. The moon had
disappeared behind clouds and a morning fog indicated that I was near a
river. My body was aching and the bump on my head was swelling. I stretched
out on the ground and heard ahead of me the sound of wagon wheels. "Come on,
old friend," I said to my horse, "one more effort and we are home free." The
horse, Kochevoi, sensed our friends were near. He let out a whinny that
could be heard for miles. A half hour later, I was with my column. By
morning we had reached the stanitza of IIinskaya, our next stop on the Don
road. I was worried, as I presented myself to the headquarters staff, that I
might have been needed during the night to transmit an order to General
Markov. There had been nothing. I had not been missed.
Our march was difficult, slowed down by the necessity of pulling the
supply wagons, by the civilians who accompanied us, and by the wounded.
Since we were always on the move, the wounded could not be properly cared
for, and even slight wounds, easily cured in normal circumstances, could be
fatal.
In view of the desperate situation, our command decided to leave the
wounded behind in Diadkovskaya. At the same time they freed a communist,
Polouian, with great ceremony and asked him to watch out for them. I said
farewell to the wounded sorrowfully.
Finally, we reached the large stanitza of Ourpenskaya, which was near
the government seat of Stavropol. This was not a Cossack city and many of
its men had joined the Red Army. General Denikine received the news that
many Cossacks had risen against the Reds and were ready to join us. Two
regiments of Kuban Cossacks arrived. Our situation now seemed a bit hopeful.
Denikine decided to march to the Don and soon our army was settled in the
two Don Cossack stanitzas, Olguiskaya and Metchetins-kaya.
The Cossacks of these towns had fought hard against the Reds. They had
removed all the tracks that connected the Rostov-on-the-Don to the
Ekaterinodar-Tzarizino line. We arrived on the eve of Easter and for the
first time in a very long while we had time to celebrate in style.
During the next month we received reinforcements. The situation was
looking more favorable. All over the immense empire, groups like ours were
forming. Denikine decided to leave the Don and set out on the conquest of
the Kuban. It was May, a beautiful month in southern Russia. Our army of ten
thousand fighting men started out on the return trip to Kuban. We were glad
to get away from the Bolsheviks, at least those in the northern Caucasus.
Soon we lost our legendary general, Sergei Leoniko-vich Markov, a tragedy to
us. It happened after we had captured the railroad station of Chablievskaya,
on the Novorossisk-Tzarizino line. The battle was virtually over when I saw
the general walking between two warehouses. He returned my salute, visibly
delighted at this first victory that cut off the Reds from the east. At that
moment, a Red shell, fired by the armored train as it retreated, exploded
over his head. He died almost immediately. The deaths first of Kornilov then
of Markov changed the course of our destiny. Even so, I think that there was
never such a small army, almost without resources, that accomplished such
exploits against an enemy infinitely superior in numbers, arms and
munitions.
A few days after the death of General Markov, I was almost killed
during the attack on the Red infantry at the railroad junction of
Tichoretskaya. But we captured Tichoretskaya and that opened up the roads to
Rostov-on-the-Don and Ekaterinodar and to the southern Caucasus. The
Bolsheviks had to abandon an enormous amount of materiel, which we
recovered: two armored trains with their battleship guns, hundreds of wagons
loaded with ammunition, and many other supplies. The victory also had
political significance. It demonstrated our strength to the population, and
encouraged those who, even though they hated the Reds, had feared to join
us. The arrival of our army in Cossack territory and our victories against
the Reds had an immediate result. Everywhere the Cossack stanitzas rose
against the Communists and our army mushroomed. Day and night, Cossack
detachments arrived to join us.
General Pokrovsky was still in disgrace for having accepted promotion
by the Ataman Filimonov. He was biding his time. As great numbers of
Cossacks began to join us, there was a need for a man like Pokrovsky to
command. When he was named commander of the Cossacks, he asked me to be his
aide-de-camp, but I chose to join a Cossack detachment serving under him
that was commanded by one of my uncles.
Pokrovsky was pitiless with both the Red soldiers and civilians. After
we captured Timochevskaya, the people as usual denounced the Bolshevik
sympathizers, who were mostly peasants from the interior. He had twenty
gallows built and placed in a circle in the main plaza. One stood apart. It
was for an officer who had been conscripted by the Reds but who had declared
his intention to rejoin our side. When the Reds retreated, he had remained
behind and hidden himself. Pokrovsky had him hanged anyhow. Practically all
captured officers were hanged. To escape, it was not enough to plead that
one had been forced into service. One had to prove that he had acted against
the Reds.
On August 2, 1918, a memorable date for me, we entered Ekaterinodar
once again after six months' absence. Most of the people gave us a wild
welcome. As we marched down the streets they shook our hands and invited the
officers to dinner. After this, I received three days' leave to go see my
family. I had had no news of them for several months, and I was apprehensive
as I approached home. I was overjoyed to find my mother and younger brother
well. They had heard from a Cossack who had seen me in Ekaterinodar that I
was safe and sound. During the three days we spent together, my mother told
me about life under the Bolsheviks. Many of our belongings and household
goods had been requisitioned. The Reds had taken all my father's small arms,
and even a pair of binoculars he had won in a pistol competition. As he took
them, the soldier told my mother that they would be useful in helping aim
the cannons against us as we attacked. The essence of civil war is irony: my
father's binoculars might have helped kill me.
My mother had not been badly harassed, though my seventeen-year-old
brother had been arrested. But he had soon been released after some peasants
my mother had once helped intervened. Leaving them was terribly painful. If
I had realized that I would end up fighting in a civil war, I would never
have Joined the army. Now it was too late. "Long farewells bring useless
tears," says the Russian proverb. I got on my horse and galloped away to
hide my tears.
My regiment was already far away and it took me three days to catch up
with it. The rout of the Reds was complete in the northern Caucasus. Cities
and stanitzas fell to us one after another. Kuban Cossacks, officers, and
even soldiers whom the Bolsheviks had not succeeded in converting, flowed
into our ranks. We were now one hundred thousand strong. Young as I was, I
knew the czarist regime was dead and that Russia needed serious reform -- but
why must neighbors kill each other, destroy their farms and livestock, and
raze their homes?
IT is NOT MY INTENTION to record the history of the Russian Civil War;
that has already been done many times. I have recorded these reminiscences
of my youth so that my later adventures will be understandable. For two
years I fought in numerous battles, was wounded, had four horses shot from
under me, and was lucky enough to survive.
Without pretending to be a historian, I would like to suggest why the
Army of Volunteers, as we were called, fell short of total victory over the
Bolsheviks, even though our victories brought us very close to Moscow. We
were so few. We had subdued an immense territory, populated by tens of
millions, but our rear was always exposed and could furnish us with no
reserves. The orders for general mobilization were ignored. Those who were
drafted hid in the forests.
Because we had no real supply system to speak of, we had to live off
the population and we made enemies of the people everywhere. If my horse was
killed, I had to replace it by requisitioning one from someone who had until
then sympathized with us.
The situation with clothing was even worse. For two years I was issued
absolutely nothing, and to avoid being eaten alive by lice, I had to
requisition whatever I needed from the populace.
The government of the volunteer army issued its own money, called
kolokoltchiki, but it wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. The
population of the conquered areas accepted it only when they had no choice.
It is clear why our presence was not always welcome, especially since our
victims were usually from among the less well off. The privileged had
connections and they could make things hard for us if we bothered them.
People who owed their lives to us would complain to the high command about
the smallest requisitions.
Lenin, among others, recognized the real reason why we and all the
White armies -- those of Kolchak, Deni-kine, loudenitch, and later Wrangel --
were defeated. So long as our armies were made up of volunteers who were
enemies of Bolshevism, everything was all right. But when we had to
conscript the peasants and our Red prisoners, our situation became
vulnerable.
After coming so close to victory, the volunteer army gave way before
the avalanche of the Red forces and their partisans behind our lines. We had
few munitions and weapons, and the Allied powers gave us practically
nothing. After the French sailors at Odessa mutinied, the Allies were only
confirmed in their desire to get out of Russia, where their soldiers might
be contaminated by the new ideology.
We could see that the end of Denikine's army was near. I wanted to say
what I thought might be a last good-bye to my mother. When I arrived home, I
was upset to learn that my brother had enlisted in the guard regiment
commanded by my uncle. I had hoped he would stay home to care for my mother.
The previous year he had enlisted in another regiment, but I had asked the
commander to send him home, since he was a minor and had enlisted without
our mother's consent. He had returned, but, as with me, his whole background
pressed him into the fight.
Our house was full of refugees, mostly Don Cossacks who had abandoned
all their possessions so as not to fall into the hands of the Reds. On my
last night home, I invited a few friends and a good accordionist and we
spent the evening dancing. About l A.M. some Cossacks from our stanitza
knocked on the door. "Lieutenant," one of them said, "the Reds are only
twelve miles away. They'll be here by morning. You must leave right away.
They'll kill you if they find you here."
One of them saddled my horse. Six cavalrymen from my regiment had come
for me. They had been with me for more than a year, since my last visit
home. As I led the horse to the courtyard gate, my mother walked with me.
She looked at me for a long time and then blessed me. I kissed her and
leaped on my horse so as not to prolong the scene, and galloped off with my
Cossacks. Nobody said a word. We had all been through the same drama.
We rode all night in the direction of Ekaterinodar. The next day, all
the roads leading to the city were clogged with refugees and soldiers. The
city was unrecognizable. It had been very clean, even pretty. Now it was
filthy, crowded with men and horses, and there were drunks everywhere. Our
soldiers had pillaged the State-owned vodka factory and everyone, it seemed,
had a bottle. I had no idea where to find our regiment, so I decided to
press on toward the Black Sea, because I knew that in case of retreat our
division would go to Touapse. I said good-bye to my friends. No one knew
what the future would be.
We practically had to fight our way across the railroad bridge, which
was the only way out of Ekaterinodar in the direction of the mountains.
Toward evening we arrived at a large tobacco plant that belonged to a Greek.
Some girls who worked in the tobacco curing houses lived in one of the
buildings. We asked if we could spend the night with them. I fell madly in
love with one of them, a marvelously beautiful young woman. Our idyll lasted
only the night and we parted the next morning with breaking hearts.
When I got to Touapse, I learned that my regiment had already passed
through, moving toward the Georgia border. Georgia had declared its
independence from Russia. I caught up with it at Adier, a tiny and charming
village beyond Sotchi.
General Rasstegaev, who commanded my regiment, told me that it was now
part of a cavalry brigade of which he was to take command. He made me his
adjutant because I was good at writing reports and orders. But the
appointment was meaningless; a few days later the brigade had ceased to
exist.
The mountain forests surrounding us were filled with Red partisans, the
"Greens," who attacked continuously, while the Qth Red Army pressed us from
the coast. Our Cossacks were increasingly demoralized.
Now, we were ordered to Georgia, where we would certainly be disarmed
and interned according to international law. The brigade was assembled and
the order given to move toward the border, a few miles away. The general
turned his head only to discover that half the brigade had not budged. He
galloped back, with me following.
"What are you doing here? Didn't you hear my orders?" he shouted at
them. The general began to curse them, castigating them for their
disobedience. It was a dangerous game to provoke three hundred Cossacks who
were afraid of nothing or nobody.
The only officer with them was a young lieutenant, a good friend of
mine. At last he came forward and saluted his commander. "General, we have
decided not to go to Georgia. We prefer to wait here and surrender to the
Red Army."
The general's face turned crimson. Without a word, he wheeled on his
horse, rode over to those who had followed him, and ordered them to return
to their lodgings. I knew that he was deeply humiliated. Not only had the
Cossacks refused to obey him, but the lieutenant and at least fifty of them
were from his own stanitza.
An hour later, a cargo ship dropped anchor a good way from shore; Adier
had no harbor. The sea was very rough, and a small boat lowered from the
ship had a terrible time getting to shore.
I went out to meet the landing party and asked what they had come for.
The ship's second officer replied that they had been sent to pick up as many
men as possible and take them to the Crimea. "But," he added, "we cannot
take any horses. We have no way of loading them, and besides, we are
anchored practically in the open sea."
The general asked his Cossacks whether they would agree to embark for
the Crimea without their horses. Their answer was immediate and unanimous;
they would rather go to Georgia. At that point, the general made a mistake
that cost him his command and his commission.
Overwhelmed by betrayal, he wanted only to get away as soon as
possible.
"Pity, I shall leave alone, and you will accompany me," he said to me,
"but I absolutely demand that they take our horses." He explained to the
second officer that they were thoroughbreds that could not be left to the
Bolsheviks. The officer agreed but only at our own risk. It took five hours
to get the horses on board, and they were so frightened and exhausted that
they took a week to recover.
When we arrived at Theodosia, an ancient city founded by the Greeks, we
presented ourselves to General Babiev, commander of the Cossack division.
Shortly afterward, Rasstegaev was dismissed for having abandoned his
Cossacks. (I saw him years later in Paris, singing for tips in a cabaret. I
was too embarrassed to speak to him.) I was sent to the famous Wolf
regiment, which had been established during the Civil War by General
Schkouro. I was not held in blame, since it was assumed that I had had to
follow the general's orders. A few days later, most of the Cossacks still at
Adier were evacuated to Theodosia without their horses. Those who did not
follow the general were conscripted into the Red Army.
Without their horses, the Cossacks had lost their souls. Fortunately,
new mounts were found for them two months later. General Denikine was forced
to resign his command. The head of the new "Russian Army" was General Piotr
Nikolaevitch, Baron Wrangel. A very cultivated man, he had been a mining
engineer before becoming a soldier, and had studied at the famous Nicolas
Cavalry School at St. Petersburg and later at the War College, where he had
finished first in his class. During World War I he had won the Cross of St.
George for having captured a German battery at the head of his squadron.
During the Civil War he commanded the Cossack divisions and was very
popular. He was the most liberal of all our generals and the most hated by
the Bolsheviks, who called him the "Black Baron." They judged correctly that
his very liberalism made him the most dangerous of their enemies. Alone
among the White generals, he had a program for the future of Russia, if his
troops should be victorious. He abolished reprisals against Red prisoners
and forbade requisitions from the civilian population. But he had come to
command too late, and he knew it.
Immediately after he took command, he began to work out plans to
evacuate the troops abroad in case of defeat. He made arrangements with the
French government, the only foreign power that recognized his authority.
Although he took the precaution of planning for a possible evacuation,
Wrangel was not a man to give up without a fight. His plan was to break out
of the peninsula and try to incite an insurrection while the Reds were
having trouble on the Polish front. But his calculations left out one
essential consideration: the Russian people could not forgive Wrangel for
his foreign family alliances.
During this new brief war, I had another proof of my extraordinary
luck. Early in May of 1920, a week before our army broke out of the Crimea,
I had been in the trenches with my regiment, facing the Red lines. One
morning, the commander had ordered me to take a few Cossacks that night and
try to capture prisoners.
Between our lines and the Reds there was a wide no-man's-land where
there were nightly skirmishes between reconnaisance parties. I chose a few
Cossacks whom I knew to be adept at this kind of operation and we worked out
a plan. To kill time during the afternoon, as we waited, I played a few
hands of cards and won quite a lot of money. By evening, however, I was ill
with chills and a high fever. When it was time to set out, I was running a
temperature of 104. I could not possibly go on such a mission. Another
officer went in my place. In the morning we learned that the reconnaisance
party had fallen into an ambush and no one had returned.
My illness was diagnosed as typhus. It left me completely exhausted;
nonetheless, it had saved my life. I was
sent away for a month's convalescence, and then repined my regiment.
When General Wrangel realized that his offensive against the superior
Red forces was doomed, he took a long shot. That was when he decided to
invade part of the Kuban Cossack territory, hoping to stir the population
against the Bolsheviks, of whom they had, by this time, some experience. His
hopes were illusory. This was the last offensive of the White Army -- and it
was the battle that claimed the life of my younger brother.
Only the Cossack regiments were to invade Kuban from the coast of the
Azov Sea, but our preparations were apparently known to the Reds well in
advance. The landing was to take place near the stanitza of
Primorsko-Akchtars-kaya on the eastern shore of the Azov Sea. The landing
was easy, following a short bombardment of the shore. This was the last time
I saw my brother. His regiment, formerly the personal guard of the Czar, was
the first to set out on a landing barge. My regiment was to follow close
behind. My last sight of him was as he stood in the prow of the landing
barge, smiling and waving to me.
As we should have expected, the landing was a fiasco. The Cossack
population did not budge. Those whom the Bolsheviks considered bad risks had
been removed before we landed. In any case, the Cossacks had not forgotten
their grievances against the White Army. There is a Russian proverb that
says, "Never spit in a well; you may need to drink from it someday."
For the first time, we were facing a new Red Army, better outfitted and
equipped than we were. It was clear from the start that they were
unbeatable. On the evening of August 22, the day my brother was killed, the
First Cossack division, commanded by General Babiev, arrived at the stanitza
of OIguinskaya, with a great number of Red prisoners. Almost immediately, he
had to order us out, without a chance to rest either ourselves or our
exhausted horses. He had been informed that the Red cavalry was attempting
to cut us off from our base. With us were two companies from the Konstantin
Military School of Kiev and two cannons. He left only two sections of mv
regiment, my own included, in the stanitza, along with the cadets and the
two cannons.
We were glad of a chance to catch some sleep. But we had also been left
in charge of a few hundred prisoners, and we didn't know what to do with
them. They were mostly boys of eighteen to twenty who did not understand the
war at all. We couldn't let them go nor could we kill them. Soon, our
dilemma was solved for us. A patrol, coming in from the opposite direction
General Babiev had gone in, notified us that a large force of Red cavalry
was advancing toward the stanitza. Since cavalry cannot fight in a town, the
director of the military school, the highest-, ranking officer among us,
ordered us to withdraw immediately to the north, in the direction of our
landing base. We had to abandon the prisoners.
Our cavalry detachment left the stanitza last. A little over a mile
from the village, we spotted a full Red cavalry regiment facing the village
from the east. When they saw us, they advanced in attack formation.
We were only about a hundred and fifty and would be overrun easily
without even the chance to resist with honor. All we could do was retreat,
and even then our chances of getting away were almost nil. We knew what
would happen to us: the officers would be slaughtered and the Cossacks taken
prisoner.
When the Reds were about five hundred yards from us, ;: they
broke into a full gallop. We drove our horses to the ; utmost of their
endurance but the Reds' horses were in much better condition, and they
gained on us. They were now only a hundred yards away. Behind me, I saw that
the front rider had seen my epaulets and had picked me out. His saber was
extended.
My horse was slowing down. I put my sword away and ^ took out my
pistol. I would take a few Reds, and use the last bullet on myself. My
orderly's horse fell just in front of me. There was nothing I could do for
him. The Red horseman was still behind me. Though he wore no insignia, he
was clearly the leader of the regiment. I fired twice and missed. But the
third time, I saw him fall less than fifty yards behind me.
We were all resigned to die -- and then we were miraculously rescued.
The two companies of cadets, who had been hidden by a tall growth of
sunflowers, were suddenly visible, and getting ready to fire on the Red
cavalry. One company formed the first line, kneeling on one knee, and behind
it stood the second. On their flanks were two heavy Maxim machine guns. They
waited for us to get close. As soon as we had spotted them, our two
detachments split in two, going off to the right and the left.
The Reds were practically on top of us, charging with such screams and
curses that even seasoned soldiers would have been terrified, but the
students did not move a muscle. Then came a curt order, and all hell broke
loose. The Red horsemen, cut down by the rifle and machine-gun fire, turned
back. Our two cannons had been brought up in the rear and they opened fire
on them as they fled.
The field was filled with dead and wounded men and horses. It was an
incredible experience in every way: the courage and coolness of the
students; the savagery of the Red attack, its courage and fanaticism. We
learned later that there had been three regiments against our two companies.
But such defeats were of no use now. It had been over for us ever since the
failure of our ill-advised landing.
We were ordered to the coast, where boats were waiting to take us back
to the Crimea. I asked about my brother's regiment and was told it was due
in an hour. I went under a tree to wait. The heat was unbearable. I was
terribly anxious and went out to the road to watch, hiding myself behind
shrubs. At last, in the distance was the glorious standard of His Imperial
Majesty that had been awarded to the regiment for its valor in the battle of
Leipzig in 1813. My grandfather, father, uncles, cousins, my brother and I
myself had all served under it.
The regiment had almost passed by and there was still no sign of my
brother. Then I saw Berejnoi, his friend, a boy of the same age who had
volunteered at the same time. I called to him and he came toward me. His
manner was enough to tell me what I feared to hear. "Where is Ivan?" For a
long moment he did not answer. "He was killed the day before yesterday." I
had been waiting for these words, but they struck me like a blow in the
face. Berejnoi told me how Ivan had died, and that he had been buried with
another officer and two Cossacks in the stanitza of Grivenskaya with full
military honors. Some of his belongings had been kept for me.
My brother's death affected me so that I could not bear the idea of
going back to war. When I got back to the Crimea, I told my commander that I
had to have some time off. He consented, and I returned to Theodosia with a
small detachment of veterans of the Civil War. I was then twenty-two years
old.
The news from the front was very pessimistic. Under pressure from the
Reds, the army had been forced to retreat to the Crimea, which was protected
by fortifications, some built by the Tartars and some by us. Our army
thought they had foreseen everything, but the fierce cold was a surprise --
and a costly one. The only unfortified part of the Crimea was along the
stormy Sivach Bay, which was on the army's right flank and was to have
formed an invulnerable barrier against the Reds. But the supposedly
unpassable Sivach froze overnight so thick that the Red cavalry crossed it
easily and attacked from the rear. That was the end of the White Army.
SO, NOW I WAS ON BOARD the steamboat Vladimir as it got under way to
leave Theodosia. The Black Sea is often stormy in the winter, but that
November day it was extraordinarily calm. It seemed to me that even the sea
understood the tragedy of men about to leave their homeland forever.
The good weather lasted all the way to Constantinople, which was lucky
because many of the boats were old and all were overloaded. Even a slight
storm could have caused a catastrophe. That night there was a cold wind and
I pushed my way below deck, but the air was so stale I couldn't stand it for
more than five minutes. I found a small space on deck amid all the heads and
legs, wrapped myself in my burka, and for the first time in my life, fell
asleep outside my homeland.
In the morning the cold was intense. The waves were higher, and the
boat began to pitch. On the horizon we could see a large two-stack ship and
near it a smaller ship.
Small boats were passing between them. The smaller ship, the Caucasus,
terribly overloaded with men, was slowly sinking. Fortunately, it stayed
afloat until all on board had been evacuated.
The sun rose higher and warmed us somewhat. I was terribly hungry.
Before we had left shore I had been able to find a large can of English
corned beef, but no one had been willing to sell us any bread, since they
knew that our money would be worthless after we departed. I opened the can
with my Cossack dagger and began to eat with my fingers. When I saw the
haggard faces of the others, and how they gazed at my every mouthful, I
offered to share the meat with the men around me. One of them had a few
pieces of bread and we ate that with the canned meat. It was very spicy and
made us frightfully thirsty. One man volunteered to go for water. It took
him an hour to fight his way through the crowd and return with a bucket of
foul-smelling water that we drank with pleasure.
To pass the time, I decided to search the ship for friends. I received
nothing but hostile looks since I had to trample on people's feet in order
to move. The men were used to the worst after two years of civil war, but it
was particularly difficult for the few women on board.
At last I found some officers from my former regiment near the prow.
Because we were facing into the wind it was colder there than on the decks,
but also less crowded. We made a sort of tent around ourselves to block the
wind and stayed there together. The next day we saw some low mountains split
by a deep crevasse, the entrance to the Bosporous straits. On both sides
stood the ruins of forts that no longer threatened anybody. Turkey had lost
J
where I could just squeeze in. "They won't find you here," she said.
"I'll come back when the danger is over. Don't move, and don't smoke."
She moved the icon back in place and I was left in the darkness with
only the air that filtered through a small crack in the wall. For a while I
listened to the artillery and rifles. It was silent for a brief moment.
Then, shots and wild screaming. Afterward, I learned that the Reds had
massacred all the Cossacks. Only one, a fellow my own age, had been rescued
by the sister-cook, who had hidden him in a dish closet.
The Reds were searching for convent treasure. I heard them approach
with the mother superior. They were warning her that thev would kill her if
she didn't tell them where it was. They were so close that I could hear
their swearwords and their heavy, drunken breathing. They looted the church
for about a half hour. In spite of the cold and my cramped quarters, I fell
asleep.
I was wakened by someone shaking me and I thought the end had come.
When I opened my eyes, I saw some officers and Cossacks, with the mother
superior. "Come out of your hole, friend," said a captain I did not know.
"And thank the mother superior for saving your life. Everybody else was
slaughtered."
I was so stiff I could hardly walk. By the time they got me to the
courtyard I saw one of the Cossack detachments from Ekaterinodar. About two
hundred Red soldiers had captured the convent as they had been returning
from a village where they had looted a State vodka factory. Dead drunk, they
had been on their way to the railroad station, where another Red detachment
was quartered, when they had come upon the convent and heard that there were
Cossacks inside.
While I had slept, the situation had reversed. Exhausted from the
fighting and drunk on the mass wine they had looted at the convent, the
soldiers, even the sentinels, had fallen asleep. The Cossacks in a nearby
stanitza had managed to alert a detachment on its way to the front. The
battle was short and the Reds were wiped out. Only twenty were left alive to
bury the dead, and then they were shot. That was what the Civil War was
like.
My orderly returned with my horse, and I set out again for
Ekaterinodar.
Despite some victories, our resistance was doomed. There were just a
few of us, and masses of Reds were arriving from all sides. We had no
reserve ammunition, while the Reds had the leftover reserves of the Russian
army at the front.
The noose was tightening around Ekaterinodar. Our superiors -- Ataman
Filimonov, Colonel Pokrovsky and some generals from the front -- decided the
only way to escape being annihilated was to retreat to the mountains to the
south on the Black Sea. I don't think they had anv idea of how we would
survive in the mountains or where we would find food for thousands of men.
How would we defend ourselves? It was a desperate decision but it was our
only choice. The situation became more critical as hordes of civilians and
retired officers who were afraid of falling into the hands of the Reds
followed us.
In February 1918 we left our beloved city only to run immediately into
a line of Bolshevik troops. After a few days of fighting, we were sure the
end had come for us. Everyone was put into the front lines, even the
civilians and the old men. But toward the evening of the third day somehow
we broke through. My mounted detachment had the responsibility of protecting
headquarters from a surprise attack.
A horseman galloped out of the woods, leaped from his horse before
Ataman Filimonov, and threw his arms around him shouting, "Kornil, Kornil."
He was one of our Cherkess allies and had brought us unexpected good news.
General Kornilov and his tiny army were just eighteen miles away. We had
thought he was still in Rostov-on-the-Don, but he too had evacuated under
pressure. He had hoped to join us and wait for better times -- for the moment
when the Cossacks, who were observing strict neutrality (ninety percent of
our men were ex-officers), would understand what real threat the Bolsheviks
were to their whole way of life.
Pokrovsky was scheduled to meet Kornilov the next day but Pokrovsky
himself had only been named major-general the evening before by Filimonov.
This was bound to offend Kornilov and the other generals. Filimonov did not,
in their view, have the right to make appointments. Now he had acted as the
head of an independent state, and this could only add to the tension between
the Cossacks and the Russians. Pokrovsky, because he was not a Cossack, was
denied a role in the joined armies.
The meeting of our two small troops under Kornilov's command was to
take place in the stanitza of Novy-Dmitrievskaya. We hoped to persuade the
Cossacks to rise, so we thought it essential to retake their capital,
Ekaterinodar. So, at the beginning of March, our army was once again before
the city. Ekaterinodar was defended by ten times our strength, and fortified
by heavy artillery against our measly ten cannons and two thousand shells.
Even so, we might have taken it if General Kornilov had not been hit by a
shell. His death was a terrible blow. It overturned all our plans. He was a
Cossack general and immensely popular. If we had taken Ekaterinodar, he
could have rallied all the Cossacks of Kuban, the Don and Terek. His
successor, General Denikine, did not have the same relationship with the
men. In any case, he decided to raise the siege and to move us to the
territory of the Don Cossacks where, it was rumored, the Cossack contingents
had begun to converge.
We went through a village called, in Russian, "The Colonies." It was
where the Germans who had been transplanted to Russia under Catherine II
lived. With elaborate security, we buried Kornilov. (The next day the Reds
discovered his grave and dragged his body through the streets of
Ekaterinodar.) had hoped to join us and wait for better times -- for the
moment when the Cossacks, who were observing strict neutrality (ninety
percent of our men were ex-officers), would understand what real threat the
Bolsheviks were to their whole way of life.
Pokrovsky was scheduled to meet Kornilov the next day but Pokrovsky
himself had only been named major-general the evening before by Filimonov.
This was bound to offend Kornilov and the other generals. Filimonov did not,
in their view, have the right to make appointments. Now he had acted as the
head of an independent state, and this could only add to the tension between
the Cossacks and the Russians. Pokrovsky, because he was not a Cossack, was
denied a role in the joined armies.
The meeting of our two small troops under Kornilov's command was to
take place in the stanitza of Novy-Dmitrievskaya. We hoped to persuade the
Cossacks to rise, so we thought it essential to retake their capital,
Ekaterinodar. So, at the beginning of March, our army was once again before
the city. Ekaterinodar was defended by ten times our strength, and fortified
by heavy artillery against our measly ten cannons and two thousand shells.
Even so, we might have taken it if General Kornilov had not been hit by a
shell. His death was a terrible blow. It overturned all our plans. He was a
Cossack general and immensely popular. If we had taken Ekaterinodar, he
could have rallied all the Cossacks of Kuban, the Don and Terek. His
successor, General Denikine, did not have the same relationship with the
men. In any case, he decided to raise the siege and to move us to the
territory of the Don Cossacks where, it was rumored, the Cossack contingents
had begun to converge.
We went through a village called, in Russian, "The Colonies." It was
where the Germans who had been transplanted to Russia under Catherine II
lived. With elaborate security, we buried Kornilov. (The next day the Reds
discovered his grave and dragged his body through the streets of
Ekaterinodar.)
BY NIGHT, across the violent winds of the steppes of the northern
Caucasus, we marched toward the Don. Each evening as we would start out only
the general staff knew what our route was to be. Nevertheless, the Reds
succeeded regularly in discovering the stanitzas where we halted, and
bombarded us with artillery fire. We were so short of guns and shells that
we could not fire back except in grave emergency. Our supply corps was the
closest Red detachment; when our shells or cartridges ran dangerously low,
we raided them.
I took part in these expeditions often. On the steppes of Kuban, one
night, we were only a few miles from my village, where my mother and younger
brother still lived. I hadn't seen them for months, and was frantic to know
if they were all right, but I could not leave the column. I had been
assigned to be General Markov's liaison with General Denikine for that
night.
It was pitch dark, the clouds blotted out any trace of moonlight, and a
cutting wind blew in our faces. We were wearing Cossack burkas, long, black
felt water- and wind-proof capes which served at night as sleeping bags. We
marched eight miles north, then turned south to throw the Bolsheviks off our
trail. We had to cross the railroad tracks, a movement which took several
hours and was very dangerous since the Reds might easily telephone our
position to the armored trains, who could bombard us. To keep the trains
from getting too close to the column as it crossed the tracks, teams of
sappers would blow up the tracks a few miles away on both sides of our
lines.
That night I was following General Denikine's personal bodyguards.
Wrapped in my burka, I had laid the bridle on the horse's neck and begun to
doze off. I was roused when my horse stopped. The column, two or three miles
long, had halted and everybody had dismounted. We stretched our stiffened
limbs and lay down, covering our heads with our burkas. Next to me was a
kurgan, one of the mounds on which the Cossacks a century before had lit
their signal fires to warn of Cherkess attacks. I climbed one side of the
kurmn to get out of the wind, attached the bridle to my leg to keep my horse
from wandering, and fell asleep. After a while, the cold woke me. When I
opened my eyes, I leaped up. The column had disappeared. My horse, grazing
on the fresh grass, had dragged me gradually down the kurgan.
The wind had died and the sky was cloudless. Overhead the moon shone
brilliantly; it was absolutely silent. I put my ear to the ground to see if
I could pick up any sound of the column and wagons. I could hear nothing. I
was quite alone in this vast, dangerous steppe.
I was frozen with such intense fear that I was physically ill. I gave
my horse his head in the hopes he would find his own way to our column. I
knew the Red cavalry would be close behind. He didn't run, he flew. The
noise of his hooves resounded like thunder on the dry ground.
After about an hour, I saw a dark line against the gray horizon. To
make less noise, I rode along the side of the road, where the earth was
softer. After a while, I realized that the dark line was a row of trees
planted along the railway tracks to protect them from snowdrifts. I knew the
road would lead to a crossing, but I didn't know what might await me there,
so I turned to the right.
When I was five hundred yards from the crossing, I thanked God that I
had made a detour. Through the unbearable silence I heard the sound of a
train slowly approaching. The armored train, I thought. I dismounted and led
my horse into the shadows of the trees. Apparently the Reds had repaired the
section of track we had blown up and were searching for the place where we
had crossed.
The train had stopped at the crossing house, and I heard what I assumed
was the Reds interrogating the railroad guard. I could not distinguish the
words. The talking stopped but still the train did not move.
It might stay there until dawn. It was already 3 A.M., so I didn't have
much time and the only safety lay on the other side of the tracks. But to
cross I would have to go through woods, down along a road that sank three
yards below the surrounding ground. The other side was easier. It was only
about a yard high, no trouble for my horse. But I would have to do all of
this without the men on the train hearing me, and there was no wind to drown
out the noise.
I pulled off farther to the right, leading the horse by the bridle. He
was used to the front, so we accomplished this easily. Then he saw the
tracks glinting in the pale moonlight. I pulled at him with all my strength
to get him to cross them. He was afraid of the slippery rails and would not
budge. All this effort made a considerable amount of noise.
I could hear my heart beating, and despite the cold I was bathed in
sweat. The only solution was to mount the horse, which might lessen his fear
and encourage his instinct to obey his rider. I made the sign of the cross
and leaped into the saddle and, for the first time ever, struck him with my
crop. Surprised and offended, he made such a leap that he almost fell
between the tracks, and I had difficulty keeping my mount. Everything
happened quickly. I found myself half stunned, lying against a tree. The
horse was standing next to me trembling. I could hear the drops of sweat
falling from his body onto the ground. My face and hands were scratched from
the branches and I had an enormous bump on my head. My whole body hurt but I
didn't have time to think. The Reds must certainly have heard. I forced
myself to my feet and led the horse through the woods.
A few minutes later, I was on the steppe once again and relieved. I was
on the right side. I heard voices from the crossing and then the train began
to move. They were searching for the source of the noise. I whipped the
horse with my crop and he leaped forward. Immediately, I heard the sound of
machine gun fire aimed in the wrong direction. But now the Reds heard the
hoof beats on the dry ground. They couldn't get me with a machine gun so
they fired a dozen cannon shells. All fell short, except one that landed
about two yards to my left.
I galloped God knows where for about twenty minutes. But the horse was
about to fall from exhaustion and so I stopped for twenty minutes. I was
certain now that the Reds were not going to get me that night. The moon had
disappeared behind clouds and a morning fog indicated that I was near a
river. My body was aching and the bump on my head was swelling. I stretched
out on the ground and heard ahead of me the sound of wagon wheels. "Come on,
old friend," I said to my horse, "one more effort and we are home free." The
horse, Kochevoi, sensed our friends were near. He let out a whinny that
could be heard for miles. A half hour later, I was with my column. By
morning we had reached the stanitza of IIinskaya, our next stop on the Don
road. I was worried, as I presented myself to the headquarters staff, that I
might have been needed during the night to transmit an order to General
Markov. There had been nothing. I had not been missed.
Our march was difficult, slowed down by the necessity of pulling the
supply wagons, by the civilians who accompanied us, and by the wounded.
Since we were always on the move, the wounded could not be properly cared
for, and even slight wounds, easily cured in normal circumstances, could be
fatal.
In view of the desperate situation, our command decided to leave the
wounded behind in Diadkovskaya. At the same time they freed a communist,
Polouian, with great ceremony and asked him to watch out for them. I said
farewell to the wounded sorrowfully.
Finally, we reached the large stanitza of Ourpenskaya, which was near
the government seat of Stavropol. This was not a Cossack city and many of
its men had joined the Red Army. General Denikine received the news that
many Cossacks had risen against the Reds and were ready to join us. Two
regiments of Kuban Cossacks arrived. Our situation now seemed a bit hopeful.
Denikine decided to march to the Don and soon our army was settled in the
two Don Cossack stanitzas, Olguiskaya and Metchetins-kaya.
The Cossacks of these towns had fought hard against the Reds. They had
removed all the tracks that connected the Rostov-on-the-Don to the
Ekaterinodar-Tzarizino line. We arrived on the eve of Easter and for the
first time in a very long while we had time to celebrate in style.
During the next month we received reinforcements. The situation was
looking more favorable. All over the immense empire, groups like ours were
forming. Denikine decided to leave the Don and set out on the conquest of
the Kuban. It was May, a beautiful month in southern Russia. Our army of ten
thousand fighting men started out on the return trip to Kuban. We were glad
to get away from the Bolsheviks, at least those in the northern Caucasus.
Soon we lost our legendary general, Sergei Leoniko-vich Markov, a tragedy to
us. It happened after we had captured the railroad station of Chablievskaya,
on the Novorossisk-Tzarizino line. The battle was virtually over when I saw
the general walking between two warehouses. He returned my salute, visibly
delighted at this first victory that cut off the Reds from the east. At that
moment, a Red shell, fired by the armored train as it retreated, exploded
over his head. He died almost immediately. The deaths first of Kornilov then
of Markov changed the course of our destiny. Even so, I think that there was
never such a small army, almost without resources, that accomplished such
exploits against an enemy infinitely superior in numbers, arms and
munitions.
A few days after the death of General Markov, I was almost killed
during the attack on the Red infantry at the railroad junction of
Tichoretskaya. But we captured Tichoretskaya and that opened up the roads to
Rostov-on-the-Don and Ekaterinodar and to the southern Caucasus. The
Bolsheviks had to abandon an enormous amount of materiel, which we
recovered: two armored trains with their battleship guns, hundreds of wagons
loaded with ammunition, and many other supplies. The victory also had
political significance. It demonstrated our strength to the population, and
encouraged those who, even though they hated the Reds, had feared to join
us. The arrival of our army in Cossack territory and our victories against
the Reds had an immediate result. Everywhere the Cossack stanitzas rose
against the Communists and our army mushroomed. Day and night, Cossack
detachments arrived to join us.
General Pokrovsky was still in disgrace for having accepted promotion
by the Ataman Filimonov. He was biding his time. As great numbers of
Cossacks began to join us, there was a need for a man like Pokrovsky to
command. When he was named commander of the Cossacks, he asked me to be his
aide-de-camp, but I chose to join a Cossack detachment serving under him
that was commanded by one of my uncles.
Pokrovsky was pitiless with both the Red soldiers and civilians. After
we captured Timochevskaya, the people as usual denounced the Bolshevik
sympathizers, who were mostly peasants from the interior. He had twenty
gallows built and placed in a circle in the main plaza. One stood apart. It
was for an officer who had been conscripted by the Reds but who had declared
his intention to rejoin our side. When the Reds retreated, he had remained
behind and hidden himself. Pokrovsky had him hanged anyhow. Practically all
captured officers were hanged. To escape, it was not enough to plead that
one had been forced into service. One had to prove that he had acted against
the Reds.
On August 2, 1918, a memorable date for me, we entered Ekaterinodar
once again after six months' absence. Most of the people gave us a wild
welcome. As we marched down the streets they shook our hands and invited the
officers to dinner. After this, I received three days' leave to go see my
family. I had had no news of them for several months, and I was apprehensive
as I approached home. I was overjoyed to find my mother and younger brother
well. They had heard from a Cossack who had seen me in Ekaterinodar that I
was safe and sound. During the three days we spent together, my mother told
me about life under the Bolsheviks. Many of our belongings and household
goods had been requisitioned. The Reds had taken all my father's small arms,
and even a pair of binoculars he had won in a pistol competition. As he took
them, the soldier told my mother that they would be useful in helping aim
the cannons against us as we attacked. The essence of civil war is irony: my
father's binoculars might have helped kill me.
My mother had not been badly harassed, though my seventeen-year-old
brother had been arrested. But he had soon been released after some peasants
my mother had once helped intervened. Leaving them was terribly painful. If
I had realized that I would end up fighting in a civil war, I would never
have Joined the army. Now it was too late. "Long farewells bring useless
tears," says the Russian proverb. I got on my horse and galloped away to
hide my tears.
My regiment was already far away and it took me three days to catch up
with it. The rout of the Reds was complete in the northern Caucasus. Cities
and stanitzas fell to us one after another. Kuban Cossacks, officers, and
even soldiers whom the Bolsheviks had not succeeded in converting, flowed
into our ranks. We were now one hundred thousand strong. Young as I was, I
knew the czarist regime was dead and that Russia needed serious reform -- but
why must neighbors kill each other, destroy their farms and livestock, and
raze their homes?
IT is NOT MY INTENTION to record the history of the Russian Civil War;
that has already been done many times. I have recorded these reminiscences
of my youth so that my later adventures will be understandable. For two
years I fought in numerous battles, was wounded, had four horses shot from
under me, and was lucky enough to survive.
Without pretending to be a historian, I would like to suggest why the
Army of Volunteers, as we were called, fell short of total victory over the
Bolsheviks, even though our victories brought us very close to Moscow. We
were so few. We had subdued an immense territory, populated by tens of
millions, but our rear was always exposed and could furnish us with no
reserves. The orders for general mobilization were ignored. Those who were
drafted hid in the forests.
Because we had no real supply system to speak of, we had to live off
the population and we made enemies of the people everywhere. If my horse was
killed, I had to replace it by requisitioning one from someone who had until
then sympathized with us.
The situation with clothing was even worse. For two years I was issued
absolutely nothing, and to avoid being eaten alive by lice, I had to
requisition whatever I needed from the populace.
The government of the volunteer army issued its own money, called
kolokoltchiki, but it wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. The
population of the conquered areas accepted it only when they had no choice.
It is clear why our presence was not always welcome, especially since our
victims were usually from among the less well off. The privileged had
connections and they could make things hard for us if we bothered them.
People who owed their lives to us would complain to the high command about
the smallest requisitions.
Lenin, among others, recognized the real reason why we and all the
White armies -- those of Kolchak, Deni-kine, loudenitch, and later Wrangel --
were defeated. So long as our armies were made up of volunteers who were
enemies of Bolshevism, everything was all right. But when we had to
conscript the peasants and our Red prisoners, our situation became
vulnerable.
After coming so close to victory, the volunteer army gave way before
the avalanche of the Red forces and their partisans behind our lines. We had
few munitions and weapons, and the Allied powers gave us practically
nothing. After the French sailors at Odessa mutinied, the Allies were only
confirmed in their desire to get out of Russia, where their soldiers might
be contaminated by the new ideology.
We could see that the end of Denikine's army was near. I wanted to say
what I thought might be a last good-bye to my mother. When I arrived home, I
was upset to learn that my brother had enlisted in the guard regiment
commanded by my uncle. I had hoped he would stay home to care for my mother.
The previous year he had enlisted in another regiment, but I had asked the
commander to send him home, since he was a minor and had enlisted without
our mother's consent. He had returned, but, as with me, his whole background
pressed him into the fight.
Our house was full of refugees, mostly Don Cossacks who had abandoned
all their possessions so as not to fall into the hands of the Reds. On my
last night home, I invited a few friends and a good accordionist and we
spent the evening dancing. About l A.M. some Cossacks from our stanitza
knocked on the door. "Lieutenant," one of them said, "the Reds are only
twelve miles away. They'll be here by morning. You must leave right away.
They'll kill you if they find you here."
One of them saddled my horse. Six cavalrymen from my regiment had come
for me. They had been with me for more than a year, since my last visit
home. As I led the horse to the courtyard gate, my mother walked with me.
She looked at me for a long time and then blessed me. I kissed her and
leaped on my horse so as not to prolong the scene, and galloped off with my
Cossacks. Nobody said a word. We had all been through the same drama.
We rode all night in the direction of Ekaterinodar. The next day, all
the roads leading to the city were clogged with refugees and soldiers. The
city was unrecognizable. It had been very clean, even pretty. Now it was
filthy, crowded with men and horses, and there were drunks everywhere. Our
soldiers had pillaged the State-owned vodka factory and everyone, it seemed,
had a bottle. I had no idea where to find our regiment, so I decided to
press on toward the Black Sea, because I knew that in case of retreat our
division would go to Touapse. I said good-bye to my friends. No one knew
what the future would be.
We practically had to fight our way across the railroad bridge, which
was the only way out of Ekaterinodar in the direction of the mountains.
Toward evening we arrived at a large tobacco plant that belonged to a Greek.
Some girls who worked in the tobacco curing houses lived in one of the
buildings. We asked if we could spend the night with them. I fell madly in
love with one of them, a marvelously beautiful young woman. Our idyll lasted
only the night and we parted the next morning with breaking hearts.
When I got to Touapse, I learned that my regiment had already passed
through, moving toward the Georgia border. Georgia had declared its
independence from Russia. I caught up with it at Adier, a tiny and charming
village beyond Sotchi.
General Rasstegaev, who commanded my regiment, told me that it was now
part of a cavalry brigade of which he was to take command. He made me his
adjutant because I was good at writing reports and orders. But the
appointment was meaningless; a few days later the brigade had ceased to
exist.
The mountain forests surrounding us were filled with Red partisans, the
"Greens," who attacked continuously, while the Qth Red Army pressed us from
the coast. Our Cossacks were increasingly demoralized.
Now, we were ordered to Georgia, where we would certainly be disarmed
and interned according to international law. The brigade was assembled and
the order given to move toward the border, a few miles away. The general
turned his head only to discover that half the brigade had not budged. He
galloped back, with me following.
"What are you doing here? Didn't you hear my orders?" he shouted at
them. The general began to curse them, castigating them for their
disobedience. It was a dangerous game to provoke three hundred Cossacks who
were afraid of nothing or nobody.
The only officer with them was a young lieutenant, a good friend of
mine. At last he came forward and saluted his commander. "General, we have
decided not to go to Georgia. We prefer to wait here and surrender to the
Red Army."
The general's face turned crimson. Without a word, he wheeled on his
horse, rode over to those who had followed him, and ordered them to return
to their lodgings. I knew that he was deeply humiliated. Not only had the
Cossacks refused to obey him, but the lieutenant and at least fifty of them
were from his own stanitza.
An hour later, a cargo ship dropped anchor a good way from shore; Adier
had no harbor. The sea was very rough, and a small boat lowered from the
ship had a terrible time getting to shore.
I went out to meet the landing party and asked what they had come for.
The ship's second officer replied that they had been sent to pick up as many
men as possible and take them to the Crimea. "But," he added, "we cannot
take any horses. We have no way of loading them, and besides, we are
anchored practically in the open sea."
The general asked his Cossacks whether they would agree to embark for
the Crimea without their horses. Their answer was immediate and unanimous;
they would rather go to Georgia. At that point, the general made a mistake
that cost him his command and his commission.
Overwhelmed by betrayal, he wanted only to get away as soon as
possible.
"Pity, I shall leave alone, and you will accompany me," he said to me,
"but I absolutely demand that they take our horses." He explained to the
second officer that they were thoroughbreds that could not be left to the
Bolsheviks. The officer agreed but only at our own risk. It took five hours
to get the horses on board, and they were so frightened and exhausted that
they took a week to recover.
When we arrived at Theodosia, an ancient city founded by the Greeks, we
presented ourselves to General Babiev, commander of the Cossack division.
Shortly afterward, Rasstegaev was dismissed for having abandoned his
Cossacks. (I saw him years later in Paris, singing for tips in a cabaret. I
was too embarrassed to speak to him.) I was sent to the famous Wolf
regiment, which had been established during the Civil War by General
Schkouro. I was not held in blame, since it was assumed that I had had to
follow the general's orders. A few days later, most of the Cossacks still at
Adier were evacuated to Theodosia without their horses. Those who did not
follow the general were conscripted into the Red Army.
Without their horses, the Cossacks had lost their souls. Fortunately,
new mounts were found for them two months later. General Denikine was forced
to resign his command. The head of the new "Russian Army" was General Piotr
Nikolaevitch, Baron Wrangel. A very cultivated man, he had been a mining
engineer before becoming a soldier, and had studied at the famous Nicolas
Cavalry School at St. Petersburg and later at the War College, where he had
finished first in his class. During World War I he had won the Cross of St.
George for having captured a German battery at the head of his squadron.
During the Civil War he commanded the Cossack divisions and was very
popular. He was the most liberal of all our generals and the most hated by
the Bolsheviks, who called him the "Black Baron." They judged correctly that
his very liberalism made him the most dangerous of their enemies. Alone
among the White generals, he had a program for the future of Russia, if his
troops should be victorious. He abolished reprisals against Red prisoners
and forbade requisitions from the civilian population. But he had come to
command too late, and he knew it.
Immediately after he took command, he began to work out plans to
evacuate the troops abroad in case of defeat. He made arrangements with the
French government, the only foreign power that recognized his authority.
Although he took the precaution of planning for a possible evacuation,
Wrangel was not a man to give up without a fight. His plan was to break out
of the peninsula and try to incite an insurrection while the Reds were
having trouble on the Polish front. But his calculations left out one
essential consideration: the Russian people could not forgive Wrangel for
his foreign family alliances.
During this new brief war, I had another proof of my extraordinary
luck. Early in May of 1920, a week before our army broke out of the Crimea,
I had been in the trenches with my regiment, facing the Red lines. One
morning, the commander had ordered me to take a few Cossacks that night and
try to capture prisoners.
Between our lines and the Reds there was a wide no-man's-land where
there were nightly skirmishes between reconnaisance parties. I chose a few
Cossacks whom I knew to be adept at this kind of operation and we worked out
a plan. To kill time during the afternoon, as we waited, I played a few
hands of cards and won quite a lot of money. By evening, however, I was ill
with chills and a high fever. When it was time to set out, I was running a
temperature of 104. I could not possibly go on such a mission. Another
officer went in my place. In the morning we learned that the reconnaisance
party had fallen into an ambush and no one had returned.
My illness was diagnosed as typhus. It left me completely exhausted;
nonetheless, it had saved my life. I was
sent away for a month's convalescence, and then repined my regiment.
When General Wrangel realized that his offensive against the superior
Red forces was doomed, he took a long shot. That was when he decided to
invade part of the Kuban Cossack territory, hoping to stir the population
against the Bolsheviks, of whom they had, by this time, some experience. His
hopes were illusory. This was the last offensive of the White Army -- and it
was the battle that claimed the life of my younger brother.
Only the Cossack regiments were to invade Kuban from the coast of the
Azov Sea, but our preparations were apparently known to the Reds well in
advance. The landing was to take place near the stanitza of
Primorsko-Akchtars-kaya on the eastern shore of the Azov Sea. The landing
was easy, following a short bombardment of the shore. This was the last time
I saw my brother. His regiment, formerly the personal guard of the Czar, was
the first to set out on a landing barge. My regiment was to follow close
behind. My last sight of him was as he stood in the prow of the landing
barge, smiling and waving to me.
As we should have expected, the landing was a fiasco. The Cossack
population did not budge. Those whom the Bolsheviks considered bad risks had
been removed before we landed. In any case, the Cossacks had not forgotten
their grievances against the White Army. There is a Russian proverb that
says, "Never spit in a well; you may need to drink from it someday."
For the first time, we were facing a new Red Army, better outfitted and
equipped than we were. It was clear from the start that they were
unbeatable. On the evening of August 22, the day my brother was killed, the
First Cossack division, commanded by General Babiev, arrived at the stanitza
of OIguinskaya, with a great number of Red prisoners. Almost immediately, he
had to order us out, without a chance to rest either ourselves or our
exhausted horses. He had been informed that the Red cavalry was attempting
to cut us off from our base. With us were two companies from the Konstantin
Military School of Kiev and two cannons. He left only two sections of mv
regiment, my own included, in the stanitza, along with the cadets and the
two cannons.
We were glad of a chance to catch some sleep. But we had also been left
in charge of a few hundred prisoners, and we didn't know what to do with
them. They were mostly boys of eighteen to twenty who did not understand the
war at all. We couldn't let them go nor could we kill them. Soon, our
dilemma was solved for us. A patrol, coming in from the opposite direction
General Babiev had gone in, notified us that a large force of Red cavalry
was advancing toward the stanitza. Since cavalry cannot fight in a town, the
director of the military school, the highest-, ranking officer among us,
ordered us to withdraw immediately to the north, in the direction of our
landing base. We had to abandon the prisoners.
Our cavalry detachment left the stanitza last. A little over a mile
from the village, we spotted a full Red cavalry regiment facing the village
from the east. When they saw us, they advanced in attack formation.
We were only about a hundred and fifty and would be overrun easily
without even the chance to resist with honor. All we could do was retreat,
and even then our chances of getting away were almost nil. We knew what
would happen to us: the officers would be slaughtered and the Cossacks taken
prisoner.
When the Reds were about five hundred yards from us, ;: they
broke into a full gallop. We drove our horses to the ; utmost of their
endurance but the Reds' horses were in much better condition, and they
gained on us. They were now only a hundred yards away. Behind me, I saw that
the front rider had seen my epaulets and had picked me out. His saber was
extended.
My horse was slowing down. I put my sword away and ^ took out my
pistol. I would take a few Reds, and use the last bullet on myself. My
orderly's horse fell just in front of me. There was nothing I could do for
him. The Red horseman was still behind me. Though he wore no insignia, he
was clearly the leader of the regiment. I fired twice and missed. But the
third time, I saw him fall less than fifty yards behind me.
We were all resigned to die -- and then we were miraculously rescued.
The two companies of cadets, who had been hidden by a tall growth of
sunflowers, were suddenly visible, and getting ready to fire on the Red
cavalry. One company formed the first line, kneeling on one knee, and behind
it stood the second. On their flanks were two heavy Maxim machine guns. They
waited for us to get close. As soon as we had spotted them, our two
detachments split in two, going off to the right and the left.
The Reds were practically on top of us, charging with such screams and
curses that even seasoned soldiers would have been terrified, but the
students did not move a muscle. Then came a curt order, and all hell broke
loose. The Red horsemen, cut down by the rifle and machine-gun fire, turned
back. Our two cannons had been brought up in the rear and they opened fire
on them as they fled.
The field was filled with dead and wounded men and horses. It was an
incredible experience in every way: the courage and coolness of the
students; the savagery of the Red attack, its courage and fanaticism. We
learned later that there had been three regiments against our two companies.
But such defeats were of no use now. It had been over for us ever since the
failure of our ill-advised landing.
We were ordered to the coast, where boats were waiting to take us back
to the Crimea. I asked about my brother's regiment and was told it was due
in an hour. I went under a tree to wait. The heat was unbearable. I was
terribly anxious and went out to the road to watch, hiding myself behind
shrubs. At last, in the distance was the glorious standard of His Imperial
Majesty that had been awarded to the regiment for its valor in the battle of
Leipzig in 1813. My grandfather, father, uncles, cousins, my brother and I
myself had all served under it.
The regiment had almost passed by and there was still no sign of my
brother. Then I saw Berejnoi, his friend, a boy of the same age who had
volunteered at the same time. I called to him and he came toward me. His
manner was enough to tell me what I feared to hear. "Where is Ivan?" For a
long moment he did not answer. "He was killed the day before yesterday." I
had been waiting for these words, but they struck me like a blow in the
face. Berejnoi told me how Ivan had died, and that he had been buried with
another officer and two Cossacks in the stanitza of Grivenskaya with full
military honors. Some of his belongings had been kept for me.
My brother's death affected me so that I could not bear the idea of
going back to war. When I got back to the Crimea, I told my commander that I
had to have some time off. He consented, and I returned to Theodosia with a
small detachment of veterans of the Civil War. I was then twenty-two years
old.
The news from the front was very pessimistic. Under pressure from the
Reds, the army had been forced to retreat to the Crimea, which was protected
by fortifications, some built by the Tartars and some by us. Our army
thought they had foreseen everything, but the fierce cold was a surprise --
and a costly one. The only unfortified part of the Crimea was along the
stormy Sivach Bay, which was on the army's right flank and was to have
formed an invulnerable barrier against the Reds. But the supposedly
unpassable Sivach froze overnight so thick that the Red cavalry crossed it
easily and attacked from the rear. That was the end of the White Army.
SO, NOW I WAS ON BOARD the steamboat Vladimir as it got under way to
leave Theodosia. The Black Sea is often stormy in the winter, but that
November day it was extraordinarily calm. It seemed to me that even the sea
understood the tragedy of men about to leave their homeland forever.
The good weather lasted all the way to Constantinople, which was lucky
because many of the boats were old and all were overloaded. Even a slight
storm could have caused a catastrophe. That night there was a cold wind and
I pushed my way below deck, but the air was so stale I couldn't stand it for
more than five minutes. I found a small space on deck amid all the heads and
legs, wrapped myself in my burka, and for the first time in my life, fell
asleep outside my homeland.
In the morning the cold was intense. The waves were higher, and the
boat began to pitch. On the horizon we could see a large two-stack ship and
near it a smaller ship.
Small boats were passing between them. The smaller ship, the Caucasus,
terribly overloaded with men, was slowly sinking. Fortunately, it stayed
afloat until all on board had been evacuated.
The sun rose higher and warmed us somewhat. I was terribly hungry.
Before we had left shore I had been able to find a large can of English
corned beef, but no one had been willing to sell us any bread, since they
knew that our money would be worthless after we departed. I opened the can
with my Cossack dagger and began to eat with my fingers. When I saw the
haggard faces of the others, and how they gazed at my every mouthful, I
offered to share the meat with the men around me. One of them had a few
pieces of bread and we ate that with the canned meat. It was very spicy and
made us frightfully thirsty. One man volunteered to go for water. It took
him an hour to fight his way through the crowd and return with a bucket of
foul-smelling water that we drank with pleasure.
To pass the time, I decided to search the ship for friends. I received
nothing but hostile looks since I had to trample on people's feet in order
to move. The men were used to the worst after two years of civil war, but it
was particularly difficult for the few women on board.
At last I found some officers from my former regiment near the prow.
Because we were facing into the wind it was colder there than on the decks,
but also less crowded. We made a sort of tent around ourselves to block the
wind and stayed there together. The next day we saw some low mountains split
by a deep crevasse, the entrance to the Bosporous straits. On both sides
stood the ruins of forts that no longer threatened anybody. Turkey had lost